It had been a great feeling to crawl under the fly the night before, and we'd all planned on a bit of a sleep in, but Nigel and I couldn't help sitting up and grabbing the binos after cracking our eyes open to the magnificent vistas outside of the fly.
With a rest day in front of us we laid gear out, checked the weather, and spent a lot of time evaluating the route up La Perouse now that we could see it in front of our own eyes. Greg made a final offer to Nigel and I, asking if we wanted to come up the mountain with them. It was conflicting – we had the chance to climb one of New Zealand's most remote peaks with a highly competent crew, an opportunity I was unlikely to have again.
But, we were in one of the most remote valleys too, and who knew what incredible old bucks and bulls spent their lives amongst its tussock and boulders. Both Nigel and I declined, preferring instead to spend the extra time hunting in the hopes of finding one of the old mountain hermits.
With that decided the boys bent their heads over maps, started dividing gear and agonising over grams of food to take. With no need to poke my nose in to that debate I went wandering out onto the glacial outwash plain. It was a uniform grey, made up of equally uniform silt particles. This caused an interesting phenomenon, the closest thing you'll find to quicksand in New Zealand. The vibrations of each step caused a little localised patch of liquefaction in the saturated silt, and the reverberations of each step could be seen echoing out in front of you, almost like walking on a huge trampoline. It was rather unsettling!
Out in the plain was yet another interesting formation known as a ‘kettle lake’ that Nigel had pointed out from the moraine wall. These are formed when glaciers retreat, but leave large chunksof ice (basically portions of the glacier) behind which then melt slower, forming a depression that fills with water. They're usually a wildly vivid blue and have the exceptional advantage of warming up in summer. This one was no exception, and despite the disquieting quicksand underfoot if you followed a peninsular of larger rocks out you could safely swim and wash away the grime of the trip in 20 degree water.
